(WASHINGTON TIMES) In a bellwether case for states trying to preserve gay-marriage bans in a fast-shifting legal landscape, Pennsylvania officials are arguing that the Supreme Court’s decision this summer and the Obama administration’s approach should not undercut the state’s ability to enforce its own marriage laws.

State officials said in a legal brief filed this week that Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, and the state’s health secretary should be dropped as defendants in a federal case filed in July by nearly two dozen state residents over the gay-marriage ban, arguing that state officials are immune to being sued in federal court without their consent.

Pennsylvania is one of 37 states where gay marriage remains illegal, but it has been the target of multiple legal challenges to its statute as the only state in the Northeast that doesn’t allow either gay marriage or same-sex civil unions. Gay-marriage activists have filed federal lawsuits in states including Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina, believing federal judges would be more sympathetic to gay marriage and more willing to overturn state prohibitions.